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Taking a minor dip with its initial airing, Homeland” grows from previous week’s total including encores

Showtime’s “Homeland” and “Masters of Sex” couldn’t touch the monster ratings that the season premiere of “The Walking Dead” enjoyed on Sunday night — but they mostly held up to the zombies on AMC.

“Homeland’s” third episode of the season dropped slightly at 9 p.m. dropped slightly, bringing in 1.81 million total viewers compared to 1.83 million last week. The picture brightened when encore viewings at 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. are added in: They helped give the “Homeland” episode 2.62 million total viewers, an increase over the previous week’s cumulative 2.5 million.

“Masters of Sex” also took a slight hit against “Talking Dead” at 10 p.m. The show grabbed 1.04 million total viewers with its original 10 p.m. airing, a decline from the 1.1 million of the previous week’s episode. With encores of the freshman sex-researcher drama added, “Masters of Sex” accumulated 1.4 million total viewers — a modest decline from the 1.5 million accumulated over the previous Sunday.

Not too much of a ratings ding, given that “The Walking Dead” gobbled up viewers like so many tasty brains, racking up 16.1 million total viewers with Sunday’s premiere.